Author: [writers hub]
The mercenary moved with chilling efficiency, his eyes locked on Zara, the pistol already rising. Instinct, honed by a lifetime of adapting and surviving, screamed at her. There was no time to think, only to react. She remembered Madam Cho's lessons on traditional Korean dance, the emphasis on fluid motion, on turning force into momentum. It was a bizarre, desperate thought, but it was all she had.
As the mercenary lunged, Zara didn't try to block or fight. Instead, she spun, using the momentum of her hanbok to create a momentary blur, throwing off his aim. The silenced thwip of the gun was almost imperceptible over the din, but she felt the rush of displaced air as a bullet grazed her ear.
He was too close. His free hand grabbed at her, aiming to incapacitate. Zara saw the heavy velvet ropes partitioning a VIP section just beside them. With a surge of adrenaline, she ducked low, twisted, and grabbed the thick rope, yanking it with all her might. The ornate stanchion holding it gave way, tumbling loudly. The heavy rope, pulled taut, whipped around, catching the mercenary's legs.
He cried out, thrown off balance, stumbling forward and momentarily distracted. It wasn't enough to stop him, but it bought her a precious second. Zara scrambled, not towards Ragnar, but towards the nearest side exit, a small, inconspicuous service door near the stage's edge.
"Get her!" the mercenary roared, regaining his footing, his pistol leveled at her back.
Just as Zara reached the door, a sudden, blinding flash erupted from the main stage. Director Ahn, still valiantly fighting, had managed to disconnect a crucial power line to the main screens. The deepfake flickered, distorted into pixelated static, then died completely. The sudden absence of the damning image, combined with the visible efforts of Ragnar's men, caused a momentary lull in the crowd's uproar, a collective gasp of confusion replacing the shouts of fury.
In that fleeting silence, a sharp, commanding voice cut through the air, amplified by the stage mic that Director Ahn now had under control. "This is a fabrication! A calculated deception!" It was Ragnar, his voice raw with fury, but now clear, powerful, demanding attention. "Mae-Yeon has orchestrated this charade to usurp control of the Botermet Trust and plunge this syndicate into chaos!"
The mercenary hesitated, his attention momentarily drawn to the stage, to Ragnar's voice now booming through the hall. He was too late.
Just as he raised his pistol again, a dark, blur shot from the side. A Shadow Wolf, sleek and silent, tackled the mercenary from behind. The pistol skittered across the floor. The two men crashed into the velvet ropes, grappling fiercely.
Zara didn't look back. Ragnar needed her. She knew the remaining plans in the journal, the extent of Mae-Yeon's reach. She burst through the service door, finding herself not backstage, but in a narrow, unlit corridor behind the very stage itself. The pounding of feet, the shouts of the crowd, were muffled here.
She ran, propelled by a desperate urgency. She found a small, unmarked door that, according to the secret map in Mae-Yeon's journal, led directly into a hidden passage underneath the stage. This was where the wires converged, where the deepfake's core broadcast point likely was. This was where Mae-Yeon's true control center might lie.
She plunged into the darkness, navigating by memory of the map, her heart pounding. The air here was even colder, the silence more profound. She could hear the faint hum of electronics, the tell-tale sign of Mae-Yeon's remaining apparatus. She followed the hum, the passage narrowing, then opening into a small, cramped space directly below the stage.
And there, bathed in the sickly green glow of several monitors, sat Mae-Yeon, calm and collected despite the chaos above. Her fingers danced across a keyboard, her eyes gleaming with a manic satisfaction. She wasn't just directing the deepfake; she was uploading more, seeding new lies, ready to bypass Ragnar's security measures the moment the initial disruption was fixed. And beside her, armed with a silenced rifle, stood another figure Zara hadn't seen before – tall, gaunt, his face a mask of cold professionalism, his eyes fixed on the entrance Zara had just used. Mae-Yeon had anticipated her, and Zara, alone and trapped beneath the stage with the mastermind of the coup, realized with a cold, horrifying certainty that she had just walked straight into the true heart of the spider's web, utterly isolated from Ragnar, whose voice still thundered above, oblivious to the deadly silence that had just fallen around his unsuspecting wife.